Cameron Cooks in Chaos: Chicken Marinara

The basic thing is that I found a brand of marinara at Costco in a 3 pack – so salt or sugar in it. It’s thick and I don’t need to add anything to thicken it.

The chicken needs to be cooked already. So if you want to throw chicken thighs (frozen), say 2 lbs – in the crock pot on low to cook the thighs. Cook them all day, take them out at the end and take the meat off the bones. Put the meat in a baking dish and cover it with marinara sauce. Bake it at about 350 till it’s all hot. Serve it on quinoa or rice.

I had a family dinner the other night, and we had 8 kids and 4 adults. I roasted fingerling potatoes – cut them into fourths, massage some Genesis Kitchen extra virgin olive oil onto the potatoes – and sprinkle them with some no salt all purpose seasoning. Dump them on a cookie sheet and put them on the top rack in the oven and you’ll have the pan of chicken marinara on the bottom shelf heating. The potatoes will take about 20-30 minutes, I wait until they are browned and cooked. I served the chicken with that cooked rice and peas thing I do – I cook the rice and when the water is almost absorbed I add frozen peas, which defrost and cook and then you just stir them together. When I time it all just right it’s all done and only takes about 30 minutes of cook time. Throw a salad on the table and it’s a big meal. The fingerling potatoes are like fries and you can dip them in the marinara. This meal was a big hit, I did good.

I know you can make your own marinara from scratch, of course – but I was cutting steps and to find a marinara without all the sugar and salt is a wonderful thing.

We didn’t do dessert – we haven’t been doing it at all lately. I’ve been off sugar and would have had 4 weeks today behind me but I went to a birthday party yesterday and there was red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and I couldn’t stand it, I had to eat it. Well that was a great reminder about WHY I am off sugar – it tasted like pure sugar and I hated how I felt. In general, however, it feels good that sugar doesn’t have that power over me anymore. I have a lot more energy – until today, the day after eating it! Bleah!

I read this list of 25 things of how sugar affects you – a friend gave it to me. This is not new news to me – but it’s crazy how harmful it is, and I’m glad my friends are catching onto this. I don’t want to be one of those weird moms that freaks out about sugar, but you know it’s so bad and it’s so harmful – I can’t ignore that. It doesn’t just make our kids hyper active – it makes them INACTIVE. It helps that I have friends coming on board with taking a stand for their children’s health.

LOVE! Finding a product that can be kept for emergenices if there is no ‘time’ for making fresh sauce etc… I do REALLY enjoy the end, where you confessed about the cupcake. I felt, and have feelings of wanting to confirm why something doesn’t work for me. It all boils down to being human. I’ve been messing with salt (iodized ) since day one, and I’ve said it a million times that it messes with me, and FINALLY 2 weekends ago, I really really realized that it has such a control over my brain, that I have seriously put my foot down. I’ve fallen down too many times from being sooo clean, just from saying I’ll just have a little something with salt. 🙂